


Vertigo All The Way Down

by Gays_From_Mars



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Attacks, BPPV, Blood Loss, Bonding, Concussions, Confusion, Crying, Cuts, Cutting, Depression, Dissociation, Family Bonding, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Foster Care, Grief/Mourning, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Insomnia, LGBTQ Character, Mental Anguish, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Ménière's disease, Panic Attacks, Post-Concussion Syndrome, Queer Character, Scars, Self-Doubt, She misses her family, Slight Medical Inaccuracies, Teens being angsty, Tinnitus, Unsolved plot hole, Vertigo - Freeform, Vomiting, but I mean her family is dead so I guess she gets a pass, cause I'm lazy like that, cause that's what we do best, fostering
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25100308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gays_From_Mars/pseuds/Gays_From_Mars
Summary: A lot can change in one night.OrAn adoption fanfic but it actually makes sense.
Kudos: 1





	1. Hospital I

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Vertigo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16592045) by [Gays_From_Mars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gays_From_Mars/pseuds/Gays_From_Mars). 



I woke up slowly. Very, very slowly. The bright lights should have helped, but they just seemed to make the process more painful. I vaguely noted a beeping coming from my left and chatter to my right. My whole body felt heavy and warm. I had so many dull, aching, and sharp pain that went from skin to muscle deep. Moving seemed like it’d be agonizingly exhausting. 

My head ached horribly and thoughts seemed to go by as quickly as cold honey, yet I still had difficulty noticing and identifying them as thoughts. I opened my eyes and squinted at the bright lights that only exacerbated my migraine.

“Oh my god,” a deep, familiar voice said, “babe, she's awake.”

The room around me tipped like a spinning see-saw and my eyes crossed in an effort to focus on the blank white wall. My stomach flipped as bile rose to my throat. Then as soon as it came, it passed, leaving me just as dazed and confused as before but slightly less tired.

I momentarily thought about turning my head to the side to see who was with me, but decided it would use too much energy, I’d find out who he was anyway. Besides just trudging through my thoughts was exhausting and I highly doubted that my muscles worked very well.

“I'm going to call the nurse,” another familiar voice said, only this time, it was a high pitched girl’s voice. She reached over me, revealing only the black hair that veiled her face from my view. She grabbed something and a clicking sound was made before she retreated back to the left.

It was only at this moment that I actually processed that I was in the hospital. Panic struck me as fast as my lethargic body could allow. I tried to remember the last thing that happened but all I could remember was going to sleep in my own bed after a normal day. Did someone kidnap me and _do_ something with my body? Did I swallow a bunch of pills and wander away from home? Tears gathered in my eyes and I trembled slightly. Vertigo washed over me like a wave, but struck less intense as last time. I didn't have the energy to hold back tears and a single dribble of water made its way to pool under my eyelid.

“Hey… honey,” the girl said as if she were trying to console me, though she sounded spooked, “you're going to be alright.” The words were shallow and were probably meant to calm _her_ instead of me, but still made me feel safe and warm.

When I looked over to the woman and her face was even more familiar than her voice, but my lethargic brain couldn't place who she was. Her round face was coated in a layer of makeup that was obviously done by a person who obviously knew her stuff.

Someone knocked on the door, tearing me away from my thoughts, and a nurse walked in and stood directly in front of me so I could see her. Through my half lidded, cloudy eyes, I could tell that she was a Latino woman with beautiful long hair. “Hello,” she said, “I'm Mia, your nurse for today.” She paused waiting for a response.

My jaw was heavy and my tongue felt foreign in my mouth, but I managed to croak out a “hi.”

She smiled and asked, “how are you feeling?”

“V’ry w’rm,” my words slurred together despite all my energy going towards moving my tongue, “I h‘ve hea’ache.”

“Well,” she generated a pill from behind her clipboard, “I was kind of expecting that so I brought you some painkillers.”

I tried to pull my hands up, but found the blanket was in the way. The blanket, as I believed it was, wasn't really a blanket. It was a big, plastic blow-up floatie over a sheet. Maneuvering my arm to get the pill, I found out that the big floatie-looking thing was the source of my warmth and retreated my hand, “too cold.” This time, it was easier to speak.

She chuckled and grabbed a plastic cup with a bendy straw and brought the Tylenol closer to me. I pulled my arm out just far enough out to grab the Tylenol and popped it in my mouth quickly, so I could bring my arms back into the warm oasis. I took a quick sip from the straw hovering near my lips to wash down the pill.

“Can you tell me your name?”

“Poly, but I go by X”

“Okay X,” Mia smiled sweetly, “this is Arin and Suzy. They found you and brought you here. They just wanted to make sure you were safe and with your family before leaving.”

It clicked. It was Arin Hanson and Suzy Berhow from Game Grumps. I was too exhausted to even think about the chance that that would happen, though sober enough to realize that I should have been excited. I swayed my head and gave them a smile of thanks.

Mia explained what had happened to me, saying that I’d been found in a secluded area in a park, concussed and bleeding out from multiple lacerations on my arms and legs. I probably lost around twenty-five to thirty liters of blood before they patched me up.

“Now, I just have a few questions for you,” she said, “nothing too much, just some basic questions. We have some officers here to ask you some more questions to figure out what happened and get you to your family as soon as possible.

I nodded, “I don' remember wha’ happened.”

“That's fine,” she said sweetly, though I knew that’d put a damper on things, “we'll figure it out. I just need to ask you a few easy questions for your concussion. Can you tell me your full name?”

“Poly X Williams.”

“Where are you right now?”

“The hospital?”

She smiled, “I mean what city.”

“Oh, sorry. Tallahassee.”

She made a face and a deep and unsettling feeling settled its way into my stomach.

“Sweetheart… this is- this Glendale.”

“Glendale? Like th’ one in California?”

There was a long pause before the nurse said, “yeah… that one.”

“I- I’m in… California?”

Mia looked shaken and confused, though not quite as much as I was, “yes honey. Where are you from?”

“Florida.”


	2. Hospital II

Mia left the room with the promise of food and some police officers, leaving Arin, Suzy, and me in a thick silence. 

“Sorry,” I covered my eyes from the intense light that increased my headache, though the pain killers were taking effect.

My dad would have gotten onto me for apologizing for something like this; apologizing never made me feel any better and always seemed to inflate the issue in my head. The words felt like I was looking for attention, looking for people to look at me and pity me. Yet the disgusting feeling of the word ‘ _sorry’_ always seem to claw its way out of my mouth with the promise to make me feel better, only to turn right back around and choke back reason and force tears and _emotion_ through with its grimy hands.

It wasn't that I was against emotion—in fact I'd rather be around a person that was overly emotional than complete devoid of emotion—it was just the _feeling_ of that emotion, the vulnerability that went with it, that was beyond unbearable.

And it was just one word that led me to feeling such an intense inner reaction. My therapist always said it was an issue, but knowing that only made it worse. It made it feel like I was going insane. Like I was losing it.

“Don't say that, honey,” Suzy’s smile was sad and sympathetic, completely unaware of the crisis going on in my head. I was positive that if she knew what I was thinking, she'd believe I was insane. I was having a breakdown over apologizing.

“You said your name is Poly X? That's a pretty cool name.” Her voice rose a pitch as she was trying to be polite or talking to a little kid.

She was very obviously trying to distract me from the whole ordeal, but I played along. “Thanks,” I said, then added so she could make conversation, “I go by X. I’m named after a band the lead singer.”

“Really?” Arin asked, catching onto what Suzy was doing, “what band?”

“X-Ray Spex. The singer’s name was Poly.”

“I’ve never heard of them.”

“Yeah, no one knows who they are.”

As soon as I had said it, I wanted to take it back. It was such a stupid and elitest thing to say that made me look like an asshole. I had to hold back the urge to slam my head against the headboard.

“Do you like it?”

That caught me off guard. No one had really asked if I _liked_ my name. It was a really strange question and I guess it did its job of taking my mind off of the true issue at hand, if only by a little bit. “Yeah, I guess so. I've gotten a few funny stories from it.”

“That's good.”

Arin leaned forward from his slumped position, drawing attention to himself so he could speak. “How are you feeling?” he asked, then pointed to his head, “like in here, not physically.”

“Well,” I laughed humorlessly and took a deep breath to will away the tears, “I was found on the opposite side of the country by two Youtubers. Next thing I know my family will’ve also disappeared _magically_ and I'm actually a character in some shitty fanfiction.”

I immediately regretted saying that, I knew it was a bad idea before, but realizing just how much it sounded like I was looking for attention, how pleadingly selfish it sounded, I wanted to jerk my head back into the wall and concuss myself all over again. Maybe then I wouldn't have to deal with _this_.

Arin and Suzy’s faces had the reaction I was dreading, somber and pitying faces. It was worse than if they had gotten angry; after all, I had been an ass and it would be expected that they would get upset. 

It really only heightened the overpowering tension. My back was even getting knots from how rigidly I was sitting.

“Sorry.”

Arin slid off his chair and onto his knees to get closer to me. He looked at me like I was one of those shivering puppies in the ASPCA commercials and it made me want to vomit. I assumed that now he knew that I knew he was a YouTuber.

It was funny, I always thought that if I’d get the chance to meet him, I’d be staring at him with big fan eyes but instead, I was inching away and desperately trying not to meet his gaze.

“Look,” he said, trying to look me in the eye, despite my eyes refusing to meet his, “we're going to make sure that you're safe before we leave you. We won't just abandon you.”

At this, I forced myself to look him in the eyes and nodded. I didn't know if he'd actually follow through with such a promise, but I felt that I could at least act like I trusted him.

Someone knocked firmly on the door, breaking the connection that Arin thought we were making. He quickly moved away from the bed and sat back on his chair. 

“Come in.”

Two police officers entered, “hello, I'm officer Miranda and this is officer Mitchell. We're just going to ask a few questions. Would you like for Mr. and Mrs. Hanson to leave?”

Despite the fact that their mere presence was making me extremely anxious, they were familiar and everything else was not. Hesitantly, I shook my head.

Just from that movement, my head started to spin and the world around me started to tip. Without even thinking about it, I clenched onto the bed sheets, as if they would keep me from flying off the bed. I had to take a few seconds to ground myself and stop from vomiting before composing myself.

“Can they stay?” Both Suzy and Arin looked surprised at my question and the tone of voice that I used that was offensively small.

“Of course,” said Officer Mitchell as he pulled out a device to show me, unfazed, “now, everything you say is going to be recorded here just in case.”

I nodded slowly as to not let the dizziness take hold of me, but I still felt a little bit off balance.

I was asked things like what my full name and address was, and also things like what the last thing I remembered was, and if there had been anything suspicious that had happened. They tried to call my parents, but when they didn’t pick up, they left a voicemail and I gave them my grandparent’s number. When that didn’t work and my aunt’s number didn’t work, the sinking feeling of dread had made its way into my stomach and had started to seep into my bones. It was only until I gave them my neighbor’s number did the phone ever pick up. Everyone except the seemingly inhuman officers were on the edge of their seat.

“Hello,” Officer Mitchell said, “this is the Glendale Police Department. Is this Marnie or Jeff Crocker?” … “Are you at home?”… “Do you know if the Williams are at home.”… “Can you connect me to them, please?”… “Yes, thank you very much.”

He pulled the phone away from his ear and said, “she says that the cars are in the driveway but it doesn’t seem like anybody’s home.”

Fear should have lifted from my shoulders, but something still felt terribly wrong. My dad was always on his phone, and when he wasn't, it was either right next to him or in his pocket. Not only that, but they had to be so worried. They wouldn’t miss any calls. 

Marnie began talking again and Officer Mitchell hummed, “yes, thank you for your time. Sorry for bothering you,” he hung up, “they weren't home. We'll have to call them later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Be sure to leave a kudos and/or a comment if it seems necessary.


	3. Hospital III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized I should add this, but this story was originally being written when I was in a really bad place. We thought my depression and anxiety medicine was making me suicidal so my doctor told me to stop it immediately. Like, go cold turkey. I had really bad withdrawal symptoms that made me have terrible vertigo, which made it hard to just walk or sleep. There had also been a death in the family and I'm not proud of it, but I also started cutting. 
> 
> It turned out that it wasn't the medicine that was making me suicidal and getting off of it made me worse, so I just went through all that for nothing but the whole time this was happening, I was writing the original story. 
> 
> Anyway, I just wanted you guys to know the backstory behind this.

Three days went by and no one ever picked up. We tried to contact anyone in my family but it seemed as if they'd disappeared out of thin air. After endless amounts of searching, the only people they found were my two biological grandfathers, though one had disowned me for being a lesbian and one was a serious drug addict. I found solstice in the finding of the latter. They called for a search for my family and the case quickly found its way to the press.

Newspapers were going crazy. Headlines sprung up from every news source talking about my family’s strange disappearance and the hashtag #FindHerFamily was trending on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Even the president had something to say about it, even if it was just the usual thoughts and prayers.

Nothing ever came up. None of my relatives got to work, my cousins didn't go to school, no irregularities in their bank checks and deposits except for the sudden lack of use. An estimated 270 people had disappeared, all related to me. What was even more odd was that the only people to  _ not _ disappear besides me, were two family member that were seriously unfit to take care of me.

I'd been experiencing major bouts of vertigo and ringing in my left ear, which after a few hearing and balance tests, the doctor decided was a bad case of Meniere’s Disease, which was an chronic vestibular disease that could just pop up out of nowhere. They gave me medicine, which helped a little, but I still had problems staying upright and I’d be jolted awake in the middle of the night after the simple act of just changing my position would make the world start to spin and a loud ringing in my ear would overtake the sounds of the noises of the hospital.

Along with all that, my parent’s custody was terminated. The law didn’t know what to label my family’s disappearance as in relation to me and I needed a caretaker, so they just decided that until further notice, they’d label it as abandonment and assign me a social worker.

I was supposed to be released that night, which meant that they had to find me a foster home soon. I actually knew what the foster care system looked like because my family had almost become a foster family, but that hadn’t eased any of my nerves. I was still going to live in a stranger's house with strange house rules and it would all be  _ strange. _

It was finally getting into my brain that I'd probably never see my family again. And although Arin and Suzy had stuck with their promise of not leaving me and visited every day after work, I still knew that it'd become difficult after I wasn't just in a hospital and instead was in a stranger’s house.

Arin had gifted me a sketchbook to fill up the seemingly endless amount of nothing. I'd stippled more than I ever had in my life, practiced landscapes and anatomy,  _ finally _ figured out hands, and nearly filled the sketchbook by the third day; there was absolutely nothing I could do  _ but _ draw. My mood was constantly low and I was always jittery and the fact that there was very little to do only made it worse.

When someone knocked on the door, I was sitting cross-legged with a blanket that Suzy had brought draped over me and I was in the midst of drawing a volcano—which actually wasn’t actually going all too well without the help of a reference picture. Quickly flipping the sketchpad closed, I called them in.

The only people that had come into my room were nurses, detectives, and Arin and Suzy. I wrapped the blanket around me tighter and when I looked up, instead of seeing any of those, I saw the sheepish grin of a curly haired toothpick followed by Arin and his wife. 

What the fuck was Dan Avidan doing there?

“Hi,” the word came out almost as a question but I still gave them a wave.

The three of them gave a chorus of hellos and Dan unnecessarily introduced himself to me before sitting down in the chairs. Dan settled himself in the recliner closest to the hospital bed while Arin and Suzy sat close together in the uncomfortable plastic chairs.

“How's your day been?” Suzy asked. 

I'd always thought watching the Game Grumps that she acted like a mom, but being in her presence only solidified that. She acted almost like a worried mother every time she came, always fussing over me and making sure I was comfortable. 

“I mean, same stuff? I let some reporters come in?”

“You let reporters come in? That's awesome,” Arin said with forced enthusiasm.

“So… how was  _ your _ day?” I asked, hoping to quit their stalling and get out why Dan was brought over.

“Well, me and Dan were talking, you see, and…”

Dan laughed awkwardly, “well, about a year ago I decided that I wanted to foster kids and I went through the licensing process and training and everything, but the training kinda freaked me out so I just never actually fostered. I realize everything is different right now but we know you've known who we are for a while. Right?”

I hummed and nodded, not bringing up that I don’t  _ really _ know who he is.

“Do you want me to foster you until we find your family?”

My stomach dropped, though I wasn’t quite sure why I was afraid. Maybe I didn’t believe that he truly understood how much taking on the responsibility of a child would impact his life. Maybe I didn’t want a replacement family. But I knew the answer I wanted to give and so I gave it.

“Sure,” I subconsciously tried to sound relieved for reasons I couldn't place, “I was told a social worker would come around 6:30.”

  
  


Dan decided to stay until the social worker came and Arin and Suzy left to let us talk. I didn't know if I liked the idea or not. In a way, I kind of preferred being alone and bored rather than being around people. Socializing was becoming harder and harder with each passing day and listening to people talk with feigned happiness made me want to lash out, not to mention every word I said made me cringe. 

But also because it was  _ Dan.  _ I felt like I was invading his personal life or a crazy stalker that would go to any lengths just to see her favorite YouTuber’s private lives.

There had also been absolutely no leads as to what happened to my family and at that point, I believed my family was never going to come back. They disappeared out of nowhere and long enough that I’d have to get a social worker. The very thought that I'd never see my family again made me want to vomit. 

Everything I did reminded me of my parents, of my baby brother and sister, of my aunts, and uncles, and cousins and they  _ weren’t _ coming back. I just felt it deep in my gut. I didn’t realize that the thought was so pressing in my mind until then. I realized I needed to get it out. Get that  _ thing _ that had been silently plaguing me.

“I don't think they're coming back.”

“Hm?” Dan asked, not keyed into what I was talking about because of the suddenness.

“My family. They're gone.”

My voice cracked embarrassingly badly.

“Well where do you think they went?” A twinge of annoyance swept through me before realizing that it wasn't meant to be a joke.

“I don't know. At this point I'm willing to think they slipped into another dimension or aliens abducted them. I've had a hell of a lot of time to think so I've come up with some crazy ideas,” I chuckled darkly, “I also recently read Dracula so maybe some weird American Horror Story form of vampire took them away to their layer and I got away and that's where the cuts came from.”

He laughed a little, which I didn't expect. I managed to giggle in return because that's what was expected of me, though I was near positive that it came out sounding forced.

We sat in silence for another minute or so until I spoke up yet again, “I really don't think they're coming back. They're gone and I've been left here in whatever this shitty situation is.” I trembled as tears began to sting at the back of my eyes and my heart rate sped up at a hummingbird’s pace. “They're gone.”

“H-hey,” he stammered when he saw my tears, “you don't know that they're gone.”

“But you don't know that either.”

He breathed in through his nose and looked me dead in the eyes, “no matter what, you're going to make it.”

I looked away, desperate to change the subject that I'd brought up. I wiped my eyes in an attempt to dry them but I ended up just smearing the water around my whole face. I didn't  _ want _ to make it and it scared me how much I was fine with that idea. Without my family, I didn't know who I was.

But once the floodgates opened, they didn't close. Tears poured mercilessly from my eyes, uncaring that Dan was  _ right there. _ He shifted in his chair, wincing and sliding down until he was kneeling on the ground by my bed, similar to how Arin did on the first day.

“Hey, don't cry, we'll figure this out. Do you need a hug?” he said his words carefully, ready for me to break even more.

I didn't want a hug. The mere thought of touch seemed repulsive at the moment if it weren't my parent's. The whole time I’d been in the hospital, I’d never had anyone touch me outside of the nurse’s clinical pokes and prods. I wanted to be alone, forever isolated until my family came back like some dramatic Edgar Allan Poe story.

I nodded. 

Once his lanky arms wrapped around my whole frame, firmly secured to the warm safety of human touch, I realized I  _ needed _ to be held. I leaned deep into the touch and felt disgusted at myself for enjoying the embrace of a man that might as well be a stranger, but that was greatly overpowered by the relief of finally having the small comfort of human touch. Even if it didn’t come from the soft embrace of my mom and dad, or the little hands of my twin sisters, or the weird history facts my cousins somehow knew.

“I’m sorry,” I burst into another wave of tears through waves of vertigo from the change in position, not even knowing why I was saying the vulgar words again.

I lifted my arms up just slightly to return the hug and placed them on his sides. I didn't deserve to be in this position with him, I was a fan of his but I was going to be living in his house. It felt  _ wrong. _

“It’s okay.”

Something in me lifted, if only a little.

“I… have something to tell you,” Dan said with his long arms still holding onto me tightly.

I broke the hug, mourning the loss of his warmth in the overactive air conditioning.

His voice was hesitant and I nervously scratched at my bandages out of anticipation. “Because I  _ am _ single, and I basically have two full time jobs, things might get a little… hectic? I don't know, you'd go to the school that's close to my house and the Grumps office, but I can’t guarantee the simple-ish life most foster family’s can give you.”

“With how nervous you were acting, I thought you were going to come out or something.”

He laughed wholeheartedly, despite the statement not really being a joke. It gave me a small twinge of joy and pride.

I tried to laugh again but all that came out was a lasting chuckle, “no polygrumps?” 

“Not yet."

I raised my eyebrows and he raised his back.

A soft knock disturbed the small moment of happiness between me and Dan. A nurse entered and introduced himself before checking my vitals and reminding me that the social worker would arrive in fifteen minutes. 

  
  


The social worker was a beautiful dark skinned lady with long braids and a pencil skirt named Tonya.

“Hi, I'm X,” I said when she entered the room, even though I knew she probably knew my name. 

She looked between Dan and I for a moment, most likely not expecting another person to be in the room, before motioning toward him, “who's this?”

Dan sat up a little straighter and held out a hand for the social worker to shake, “I'm Daniel Avidan and I'm close friends with the man that found X. I have a fostering license and wanted to know if I could foster her.”

The strategicness of his word placement and the formality in his voice made me want to doze off and go off into my own world but I knew how important and life changing this conversation was and willed myself to focus and stay present.

“Alright,” Tonya said as if she were expecting him to say that, slightly throwing me off guard, “so you technically  _ can _ request to foster someone but it's not necessarily a one hundred percent chance you can foster her. I'll have to go through your records and evaluate X. But I mean, if you two do make a good match, it'll make my job a little easier.”

I nodded but had to close my eyes as vertigo washed over me and a shrill white noise in my left ear went from five to a hundred in an instant. My eyes crossed under the eyelids and I had to use my arm to hold myself up from falling off the bed. My heart rate spiked and the gross feeling in my stomach from losing my family grew a little from the nausea. When the feeling passed and my eyes uncrossed and focused on the two people looking at me in confusion and slight fear, my face heated up. 

“Sorry, busy being possessed by demons here,” I said in an attempt to relieve the tension and but then added, “just a bad bout of vertigo.”

They nodded but Dan still looked eyed me and we continued on with only mild bouts of vertigo. 

Tonya asked Dan to leave the room so she could ask me some questions about my previous home situation, mental health history, and how I reacted to stress. Once she was done, she told me she'd pull up Dan's records.

When they both came back, they were both smiling. Tonya brushed a stray braid away from her face, “I'm happy to say you can go home with Dan.”

An obligatory grin broke out across my face but no happy emotions came from it. Instead, I felt disgusting, like I was forcing myself into his personal life. I knew I should have been happy, hell I was living the fangirl’s dream, but that only made the feeling worse. What if I was only doing this because I was a fan of his? 

In retrospect, the grin probably came out as a grimace.

I practically knew I was only agreeing to this because I knew Dan. I wouldn't have agreed to live in any strange man's house alone. I wanted to cry from the pure anger I felt with myself but clawed through it. 

“Sweet.”


End file.
